I stood near the edge of the road, on my right stood, what seemed to my eight year old self, a massive car. To my left-- a deep gutter, a cut, sliced into the reddened gravel of the earth. The trees rustled as the winds of the golden lake battled against the seven hills of the African city, and the birds wailed as they fought, for below them another battle was in the process of creation. The creature rounded the metallic monster beside me, its head bowed low as my small hand reached forward for its dark fur. The trees rustled once again, a calling from the winds-- a warning from the forests. An intimate relationship between dog and human had once settled between him and I, but that had been long ago, and my memory of the animal was fraying. The voices behind me, those of a boy of twelve and his friend, soon faded as my laughter stirred the surrounding brush before the silence came. It seemed that the world had taken a deep breath; the trees no longer rustled, the birds did no longer call; the world could only watch in endless waiting before the African soil was to be reddened once more. The dog, did not wait for my hand to touch him, the touch of man had for too long been a forgotten memory to him. His head shifted as if something had been awakened in the deep caverns of his black soul. His eyes met mine. They were fixed-- unmoving from me. His endless, almost infinite yellow gaze saw deep into my wandering soul. Every truth and every lie, every moment of memorable euphoria and innocence that had for years never been dismayed in me was seen by him. The sheer juxtaposition between the light of his yellow eyes and the unending darkness of his shadowy mane transformed this old friend, this dog, this demon before me into a creature of darkness whose thirst could only be quenched by human blood. The dog had lost his soul long before this moment. A black evil had stirred within him; it had crept and poisoned every ounce of good that had once lived inside, and with the madness of murderous insanity that had been contained behind the walls of his dark fur, it was ready to take its first victim. The once joyful and infantile smile that had been engraved on my ignorant face diminished as the demon glared its yellow fangs. Trails of white saliva clung to its teeth while his hind legs tensed in preparation for the plunge, and everything that had ever been or was ever to become inside this black devil was revealed, for at this very moment there was no turning back. Its massive claws struck me on the shoulders, throwing me into the gutter beneath with him. As I fell backwards, our eyes stayed interlocked, his yellowed iris never at any moment straying in any direction but mine. They were wide and determined; two unchanging circles with a solid and minute pupil in both of them; the last candle of good that had once made light within him had been blown out long before. I turned to land on the muddy surface of the earth’s wound, and closed my eyes on impact, but the demon had fallen above me. As I opened my eyes I could feel its warm breath on my neck, a horrifying scent filling my nostrils as I took a final glimpse of his paws inches from either side of my face. Then it struck. A bloodcurdling scream echoed from the hill that day, and its fangs pierced through my scalp as its full weight was thrown against my cranium. Its lungs breathing warm air in the form of beastly gasps into the opening wound, almost as if it were euphoric from feeling the taste of human flesh. His eyes unblinking stared into the abyss as its neck stiffened and then pulled up. An almost inhuman, pathetic, and perhaps inaudible moan came from within me. The flesh gave way and my scalp tore slowly from my skull as its paw pushed my face into the gravel. My eyes closed, I knew then that all was lost. A gushing fountain of red water poured down my face and cheeks as the thick taste of hemoglobin entered my mouth. The birds had flown away by that time, and I did not see the winds pledge war against the hills of the African city, nor hear the crackling of branches for many years after that; for too long did I live in fear that the demon would return again in its other forms and reawaken the bloodthirsty creatures of the night to end what had once been started.